I have recently estimated for 2 jobs and not got them due to price. Now the 2 jobs in question i felt i went in at very reasonably but I wanted to see how you guys feel about my pricing.....So here are descriptions of the 2 jobs....

1) Full rewire of a 3 bedroom house (Pendants in all rooms except bathroom, toilet & kitchen, Including Kitchen, Lounge, Foyer, Toilet, Bathroom & Garage + New Consumer Unit....New Digital TV aerial with 4 points around the house.....Oh & make good to all of the walls....

All the accessories I was going to use were Crabtree & a Crabtree Starbreaker consumer unit.

Now i priced this job at £2750.00......I think personally this is a very cheap price but the person who got the job priced it at an incredible £2100.00

Now I did budge down to £2600.00 not that I wanted to but having only been setup for 6 months any work is better than no work....

Your prices aren't really that expensive, i'd say they were all in the ball park (depending on lots of factors ofc).

Just remember theres always going to be someone who can do it cheaper. I got a call last week, letting me know i hadn't won a job because "well my mates started doing a bit of electrics, so hes going to do it", thats fine i said, thanks for calling.

Price 1, approx £ 2000 for a weeks work(labour) there will be plenty of people who will work for less than half that, so its not suprising you've been undercut.
Price 2, quite a reasonable price,but theres always going to be the bloke from down the pub 'wot knows lectrics'
The problem with this trade is that to get something installed,working and looking good is quite easy and anybody of average ability can do it,but to get it installed to a compliant, safe standard is a different matter.

Location makes a large difference. Here in Leicester you'd be laughed at quoting £2700 for a basic 3 bed rewire, £2000 or less is typical.

Downlights, what - £12 each? so maybe £200 in parts, a day to do it, could be looked at as expensive. £150/day here is too much.

If in London, then you are probably about right.

The prices in leicester must have gone down big time,back in the nineties the going rate for an NIC EIC contractor to rewire a 3 bed semi was around £2500.
I remember doing an alarm for a guy in Evington, who wanted a quote for a rewire.He produced some quotes from NIC contractors and all were around the £2500 mark. I went in at about £1800 and lost out to someone willing to do the job for £700.

Your prices, to me are scary low and I would think you were a cowboy if you quoted that to me. I'd be paying a lad that much to help me. I realise that my mortgage and all that stuff is probably much higher than yours and son on (South Bucks) It costs me a pound just to park the van and pop to the bank to put a cheque in. No, I am not wealthy.

I took a call today to go and quote for a rewire in High Wycombe. I'm going to go and quote just for the amusement of it because she said three things of note:

First, that they have already had two quotes and that they were agbout £10k. Next, that her husband is going to help. Then that it would take two days to rewire the house. It is a 2 bedroom jobbie so it maybe about £6k but bear in mind the one I am working on at the moment is 2 bedrooms and it would be about 12K cos it is huge.

Tell us where you are so that your local mates can give you some feedback.

You can rewire and make good a 3 bed house in 1 week?? If you can all credit to you!

LoL - at risk of turning this into a p*****g competion, yes, of course - I worked on several contracts that would have a pair of lads doing a house a day (long day) - but do able if you were looking to make bonus.

I don't think there's anything wrong with taking a week btw - only that you need to price to reflect the local market - or win work elsewhere at higher cost and travel.

It's easy to knock £800 notes of a 3 bed rewire if that guy is hungrier than you are - believe me - some will knock an awful lot more off.

Good luck with it - get some local feedback, find out whose genuine and who's desperate - that'll tell you if your prices are OK

Average 3 bed semi in a week used to be no problem, all chased in and made good,but obviously it depends how much is to be installed.
As mentioned by OMS council rewires ,all surface 2 blokes ,one day.

We don't do domestics very much but a 3 bed semi I can get two blokes to do in two days easy with all the chasing. We don't normally have to do the making good as when we do them on the farms there is always someone that does that sort of thing and decorates behind us too.

I'd certainly be looking higher than your prices too.

If they can do it that cheap they are either working for peanuts or nicking the gear and doing a moonlight.

Funny I have been contemplating the same thing today after seeing what others are charging, now I had just priced for a very high end barrier system, all ground works and tarmac etc, anti ram posts and a coin system to collect on the way out ..... all in all around 15k

The client has had an estimate for similar equipment no coin system and no ground works ...........£ 5k, I cant compete against it and walked away.

Another job, massive refurbishment of a community center approx 3k of equipment based on the spec I was originally given, some one has gone in at £3400 now either my 3 wholesalers are "ripping " me a new one or someone has massively under estimated these jobs or im living in cloud cuckoo land.

Back to the OP not expensive mate IMO but it seems everyone is working for nothing.

Thans for all the comments guys, Well I only work on my own as I cannot afford to paid someone at the moment & I am not busy enough for need to smash out a 3 bed in a week. I didn't train to become an electrician to just earn retail wages, I could of just worked in a dead end job, Many different opinions and I just guess its about finding the right customers, Current job i'm on the customer pays £130.00 p/day and pays for the materials themselves.....need to find more customers that understand we are trying to make a living.

Difficult to comment without seeing the houses and whether you are going 12v or 240v with the downlighters but I'd say your prices were on the low side. I'd struggle to do an occupied 3 bed semi in that time but then I'm old(ish) and slow.

As others have said - you will always get undercut - a mate of mine once said to me if he gets more than 50% of the jobs he quotes for he knows he's too cheap. I like to think it's my brilliant personality, attention to detail and quality paperwork that gets me nearer 100% than 50%. I choose not to work in some areas and have a target market.

If I were you I'd drive north up the A3 or A3(M) a bit to where there are more fields than houses. Plenty of retired ex-Navy seafarers that still have the money - it's not too much diesel to go ten miles up the road to say the Petersfield area. Far more money there than in Pompey.

Keep your pride, keep your chin up and go along the Zs route - reassuringly expensive. In the right area with the right people it works. I know that if I tried that stance in most of Pompey, Havant, Selsey then I'd be laughed at.

I didn't train to become an electrician to just earn retail wages, I could of just worked in a dead end job,

Be careful of that attitude, old son, it rubs off on clients, they pick it up like radar - there are plenty of people in retail working hard and doing a damn good job on small wages - and there are plenty of people in retail that make an absolute fortune and frankly wouldn't get out of bed for the cost of the rewire of a 3 bed semi and could buy and sell electricians with pocket change.

You may think your a skilled man - but wiring semi's isn't rocket science, trust me, I've been there and done that - it's nothing special. Engineering generally means that you get to eat and you usually have a place to sleep - it's not a valued profession by any stretch of the imagination, so pick your battles and your clients.

You are only worth what the client is willing to pay, and if your competion is doing the job for less than you expect, you need to add value, find a USP, divesify, expand into different areas, or do something else - whatever.

Do not develop an attitude that someone owes you a living though - it doesn't work, it'll make you bitter and you'll still be no richer.

Nothing personal - just a word of caution when your still in the formative stage of your business development, yes.

Dan IMHO
I would suspect that you're a tadge on the conservative side that said there is no such thing as a high or low price it's the amount that the client will pay, or how much you can get away with, its difficult times, pricing work is not a science but more like trying to pin the tail on the donkey.
You need to know where you are and where your going and as OMS rightly says when pricing work the posts sort of turn into a P#ssing competition
Make an assessment of all your overheads include a realistic salary for yourself as if you were an employee knock it out on a spread simple sheet and then analyze it down to monthly and weekly maybe daily
So back to the original post," opinion am I to low or to high" now ask a similar question am I making money.
Good luck Dan no high or low price you charge what the customer will pay while putting food on the table